


Present Tense

by kalena



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Angst Fluff Cookies Kitten, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:52:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalena/pseuds/kalena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows the Chuck/Danny Love story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/186164">A Night Off</a></p><p>Casey's not happy after Chuck's hookup with Danny.  Then he starts making threats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Present Tense

**Author's Note:**

> I thank the Goddesses, JiM and frackin_sweet.

Until Wednesday at 11:30, it was his own business and nobody else's. He felt like a million bucks. He had his little corner of the world by the tail and a smile for everybody. By 11:31, fun time was over. He'd been reminded yet again that there wasn't anything all his own. Somewhere back in the farthest 3.27% of his brain, he was still plain old Chuck Bartowski, loser software wannabe, making the best of things, dorking forty hours a week at the Buy More.

The other 96.73% should've known better by now.

Chuck was always impulsive. It just didn't used to get him into the kind of trouble it did now. 'It's not a federal case' -- everything was a federal case. This time? Say he'd spent two seconds debating whether he should stay the night with Danny; it wouldn't have mattered. It was a no-brainer. His one chance to be with Casey, even if it wasn't, even if Danny was only a really sweet lookalike on loan from the FBI, there was no way he could let that go.

At 11:30, Casey filled the staff doorway of the Buy More. The steam drifting out of his ears was the first hint that all was not well. He had more grunts than the Marine Corps. It was hard for the crew to make sense of his Morse Code when he'd been using real words at work for nearly a year now. By 12:45, even though he was busy with customers, Chuck had been sliced, diced, chopped and julienne fried by those infomercial eyes.

He was pretty sure Ellie wouldn't recognize him when he came home from work via Fed Ex in two-inch chunks.

After the lunchtime shoppers headed back to work, Casey pushed him off the floor, backing him steadily down the hall toward The Cage. A hundred capillaries gave up their lives under those fingers. He could feel the bruises forming already. "Look, Casey, I'm supposed to be on the desk –"

"Screw the desk. You weren't worried about the desk last night when you were out trolling for a piece of ass."

Tensing up just made it worse. Chuck's head hit the cement block with a smack that rang his bones like a bell. His neck hurt.

"It wasn't like that!" He'd never been truly afraid of Casey – ignorance and optimism were a dangerous combination -- but he'd never seen him so angry, either. Pale with fury, the man rose up before him, a monolith of impending doom. Casey was only taller by a couple inches, but this close, and this mad, he was as enormous and death-dealing as Everest.

"I'm sure it wasn't." Warm coffee-and-cream breath touched Chuck's face in a way that would've got him insta-hard if he'd thought about late at night. In the Buy More back room, he wanted to disappear into the ugly gray paint. Anything to escape Casey's bitter chuckle. "It never is. But last night, you got lucky. Did you get a good laugh out of fucking a man who looked like me? Did you have a good ride?" He banged Chuck against the wall again.

"Ow!"

"Ow!" Casey mimicked. "You perverted freak. Did you get off knowing I had to listen to that filth all night long?" Casey dug a thumb in under Chuck's chin, tilting his face up painfully. "I'm just glad I didn't have to watch you fuck him in the alley. Vice squads arrest scum like you every night. You make me sick."

Oh, God.

Casey knew. He knew everything. He was saying terrible, awful things. He was looking at Chuck like he hated him. Like Chuck was sliming Casey's hands just by being pulped under them. Like of all the bad things Casey'd ever seen, Chuck was the worst.

He couldn't open his jaw to speak. He could only move his lips. "No, I swear!" He couldn't even plead that it had nothing to do with Casey; it had everything to do with him and Casey obviously knew it. "I didn't know, I never thought –"

"You never thought you'd get caught." Casey's eyes were harder than his hands. He grunted; it sounded even less benign that it ever had before. "Well, you think about this. If you ever do anything like that again, Walker will never find your body."

The door swung shut behind him before Chuck gave in and slid down the wall.

Casey'd never threatened him over Sarah, Lou or Jill. This wasn't professional. It was personal.

He wouldn't have figured Casey for a gay-basher, but 'don't ask, don't tell' was his way of life. He didn't tell anybody anything. Chuck heard him joke about it, once, with that "who hasn't slept with Bryce Larkin?" crack, but lots of people joked about things they thought were disgusting. It made disgusting things less real.

Major John Casey, NSA, was an old-fashioned guy. A love it or leave it conservative from the word Reagan, he had a t-shirt for a world view -- Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort It Out.

Chuck played enough war games over time to know that fragging was real. Soldiers got rid of their despised superior officers; why wouldn't Casey get rid of him? It would be simple; the man wouldn't even have to do anything. He'd only have to do nothing, just once. No one would ever see. Chuck was in danger constantly, sometimes because he evaded his handlers in the first place. Like last night.

It could happen any time.

He could die. Be dead. Not resting, stunned, or pining for the fjords. Bullet through the heart, a red mist rising from the pavement after a dive from the fourteenth floor, poisoned with an unidentifiable substance. Maybe Casey would choose to do it himself. A broken neck was just as dead. Or maybe he'd tranquilize Chuck into the next world; allergic reactions killed lots of people, and it would be easy to pass off as a tragic accident.

And it was all his own fault.

He should never have been out hooking up with a stranger. And if he was going to do that, he shouldn't have hooked up with a stranger who bore an uncanny resemblance to Major John Casey. But he played, and now he paid. Had he realized Casey was in the van outside their window listening to every moan and sigh, thermal images capturing every touch and kiss, crazywonderful sex with Danny wouldn't have been a problem. He could never have gotten hard in the first place.

He'd never felt so small, pathetic, exposed.

The desk was waiting for him. He'd used up all his sick time during the last mission, where they were undercover for days. He'd rather be back there cleaning the hippo enclosure than facing an afternoon at the Buy More with Casey hating his guts. But it was about time for him to face the iTunes. Had he not undergone death-defying spy experiences? He'd been tortured. He knew how to tango. He could defuse bombs. Guns & Ammo was on his bedside table.

Never minding, of course, that Casey was usually the one who pulled his ass out of the fire, and sometimes right out of the wild blue. And besides, Casey couldn't do anything to him, not really. He had a sworn oath to protect and serve. Okay, that was the cops, but Casey would uphold whatever oaths it was that he took, and obey his orders to the best of his ability. Which was pretty damned best. That meant keeping Chuck safe, not ripping him limb from limb, no matter what his opinion of Chuck's sex life.

This had to happen. He couldn't spend his whole life waiting for approval that would never come. He'd disappointed his dad by being a loser. What computer genius could be proud of a Nerd Herder for a son? He'd disappointed himself by being a loser. He'd disappointed Morgan by not being the friend he used to be.

Ellie, too, though she didn't know it yet. That was where all the Sarah joy came from. She told him when she gave him The Talk – back near the end of the Bryceaceous Period, before he'd understood what she was talking about -- that whatever he wanted was okay. But he knew she hoped both of them would get married – yeah, the double wedding idea was still tattooed on her forehead -- raise kids, stay close, stay a family.

Now there was Casey.

He couldn't stop disappointing people. Maybe it was some kind of strange astrological configuration -- bad moon rising, Venus and Mars totally fucked. One thing he could do was stop disappointing himself. He wasn't going to run away.

It was time to cowboy up.

With a heave, he made it to his feet. Yeah, this was going to be about as much fun as a Borg assimilation.

He'd never realized how much time he spent concentrating on Casey, mentally following him around the building as the most important thing in it. Also, he hadn't realized how much time Casey spent aware of him. There must be something to the idea that their brain waves were all in the ether together, because whatever thing Casey did when his awareness was on Chuck . . . he could feel it. It had always been there, he got that now, but before, it had been neutral; comforting, even. Today it wasn't. And it wasn't just Chuck's overactive imagination.

The curl of Casey's lips was only the visible part of the spectrum. That was obvious the very few times Casey's head turned in his direction. The invisible part was shading into the infrared, and it was dripping with enough disdain to make Chuck cringe inside. With night vision goggles, he was sure it would be visible to everybody in the store.

Casey kept it up for the whole day Wednesday and all through Thursday. Every time his mental blocking powers lapsed, Chuck could feel the hands of Casey's quiet menace slide up past his shrinking groin, across his vulnerable belly, and on up to squeeze Chuck's neck. It was tough to hold a conversation when he was almost gasping for air.

It also made an ordinarily dull and lackluster job something completely different -- a grueling test of willpower. Chuck had never been the focus of that kind of disgust. He liked to be liked, and he went out of his way to make sure that happened. And . . . Casey'd grown used to him before. Eventually. Chuck was still convinced that Casey liked him, deep down where molten iron flowed around the anisotropic inner core.

By the end of Thursday, he really felt the pressure. It was a good time. The early after-work crowd was filling up the place, a loud hum of conversation under the unceasing Muzak. He cornered Casey behind the dvds.

"What do you want, Bartowski?" Casey betrayed no emotion. He might as well have been a real sculpture.

"I was just – I want to say I'm sorry. I know you don't like what I did –"

"There's no sorry about it." Casey's stare left a smoking hole straight through the back of Chuck's skull, from right between the eyes.

"I apologize, I mean it, I hope you can forgive me." Something stopped him from telling Casey he'd never do it again. He looked down, almost shuffling his feet.

Casey hip-checked Chuck into the dvd racks and practically ground up the carpet getting away from him. Well, didn't that just fry his motherboard.

"Why do you hate me," he yelled at the retreating back, "when all I did was –" and it was a good thing he couldn't figure out a real way to finish that sentence, because the buzz of conversation disappeared like a pastry on Big Mike's desk. The Muzak was silent. Even the ambient air-conditioned breezes smelled like anticipation. The entire staff and most of the customers were watching him.

He stood peering around like a meerkat for five really long seconds before he ducked down and crawled away, not standing up until he came up behind a desk suitably far away from the scene. So much for that great idea. Good thing he'd timed it right before leaving. He was smart enough to expect that kind of response, and wasn't about to deal with the rest of the day after being nose-whacked like a bad puppy.

He spent a sleepless night trying to lie still so Casey wouldn't notice.

Friday morning, Morgan found him in the break room with his head on the table. Not like sitting there would help, but he just didn't have the energy. "Chuck? Hey, Chuck, there's somebody on the phone – oh, buddy, you don't look so good."

"I don't feel so good." Chuck swayed on his feet, a little dizzy. Had he eaten last night?

"I take that back, you look craptastic. You better let me drive you home. Big Mike will let us take a Nerd Herder."

"Because I'm sick. Not at all because it'll get you out of here for a while." Chuck smiled weakly, but he was glad to have Morgan next to him as they headed out. Maybe if he just got all this off his chest, it would help some.

He stared out the passenger side window. Looking out the front, with the road disappearing under the tiny car, was making his head spin. He was messed up. He'd made a big old mess that crossed lines, and there wasn't anybody he could talk to about it. Sarah had to know about his fling, but she wasn't the right listener. The truth was, he couldn't face her with this, either. He took a deep breath, hoping his stomach would settle.

"Morgan," he began tentatively, still looking out the window.

The tuneless whistling stopped. "That's my name. Don't wear it out."

He wasn't with it enough to remember where that line came from. It had to come from somewhere. "Can I . . . talk to you? I mean, really talk?"

Morgan eyed him -- longer than a moving car on a city street allowed for, in Chuck's opinion. "If you have to ask, I need sustenance for this conversation. And you look like you could eat." He made a left, drove two blocks, and pulled into Giamela's. It was early, but the place was open. They didn't say anything while they stood in line. Cold cuts for Morgan, extra mayo and hot peppers; meatball for Chuck. He didn't even have it in him to discuss their respective sandwiches.

"You wanna go to your place?" Only a few crumbs were left. It hadn't taken Morgan three blocks to demolish his sub. Of course, there'd been a red light.

"No. I don't want anybody to accidentally overhear." Now that he had a few brain cells corralled, he realized he didn't want to be in a company car, either. They were all probably wired. "Let's go over to McCambridge. We can sit by the memorial."

Right here off the street, the park was green and lovely, with a geometry of colorful flowers around the small WWII memorial obelisk. Small obelisk, was that an oxymoron?

"So, what's on your mind?"

Chuck stretched out on the godawful cement bench, staring up at the sky. He didn't know how something so flat could dig into his back. The sun, at its morning forty-five degree angle, gradually warmed away some of the freakout. He didn't feel quite as much like the scum of the earth as he had an hour ago. Chuck didn't lie, cheat or steal. He tried to be nice to people, and he cared about what happened to them. He was a good person, as good as he could manage. It didn't matter who he thought about when his pants were down. Right?

"Here, you want this?" He handed off the rest of the meatball sandwich. There were a couple bites missing.

Morgan gave him a strange look. "You really are sick."

"I'm not! I'm not sick!" Almost choking on the words, he shut his mouth, stopping himself from saying anything more stupid, and since when had he ever done that with Morgan? It was only a joke, but after Casey, he was a little sensitive. He wasn't sick. He wasn't a disgusting freak.

He sat up. Facing resolutely forward, he tried, "It's . . . I don't know how to tell you this, but I'll just say it." He took a breath and mouthed some of the words, but they weren't the right words, or at least they didn't come out right. They didn't come out at all. One more time. "I'm, uh." Oh, God. "I'm. Bisexual."

He wanted to look anywhere but at Morgan, but he couldn't. So he was watching when the worst happened.

Mogan's head snapped back like he'd been hit. He was round-eyed, open-mouthed. Chuck waited, agonized, through a significant pause. "You're telling me you're a hermaphrodite?" Morgan stared at him in amazement. Then he bent double and nearly fell off the bench, braying like a donkey.

"That's not funny!"

"Sorry, sorry. I couldn't stop myself. So you like guys, too." He straightened his face out, or at least tried. "Jeez, I thought you'd never tell me."

"You – what? You knew?"

Morgan gave him a look that would have worked over those little half-glasses his grandma had when he was little. "Chuck. Please."

"Please, what? This was my deepest, darkest secret, and you just know?"

"I saw you with Bryce, man, how could I miss it?" Now Morgan was looking away.

"I didn't know with Bryce! Ellie figured it out years before I did. It wasn't until after – until it was all over that I even had a clue." Now he wished he had his sandwich back. He could at least squash it to mush or shred the paper. "And she was the only one who knew everything. I thought."

"That miserable son of a bitch. Back then, the only thing I wished is that it could've been me. I wished you loved me like that."

That spun Chuck around, or at least as around as he could get on a cement bench. "What? Why? You're not even gay!" His shoulders had been up around his ears anyway, and now he hunched over and rubbed his forehead. Disappointing one more person – and his best friend, at that – was way too much for this suckifying suckmorphic day of suck.

"I'm not, so don't look like that. It's not about that." Morgan punched his shoulder. At least he pulled it this time. He didn't always. "It's about . . . you. You wanna talk serious? This is as serious as Kryptonite."

Chuck was still a little dazed. "Uh?"

"You've always been the most important person in my life. If you were in love with me, I'd hit that in a hot second. Because you would never let me down, never let me go, and I'd be the center of the universe. Like when we were kids. Because that's the way it is with you." Morgan considered his next words. "If you had a C cup, you'd be, like, the perfect human being."

He choked a little. "Yeah, because that would be so pretty." Intrigued in spite of himself, Chuck asked, "What about the -- ?" He couldn't bring himself to make a tacky fingers through circled-fingers gesture, much less say it out loud. Of course, Morgan understood him perfectly well.

"I know you. You'd be hot. I bet you'd do anything. And hot sex, dick or no dick," he shrugged, "is still hot sex."

"I'm glad you have such confidence in me." Chuck flat-handed his hair. Today was getting weirder and weirder, but at least he didn't feel nauseated any more.

"So – that was it? You decided after all these years you'd finally tell me you drive on both sides?" There might have been a little accusation in that tone, which was borne out when Morgan rolled his eyes. "Thanks for being so open."

"I was – it was only that once! And it was already over before I knew it existed!" Chuck sighed. "It didn't seem worth telling anybody about, and besides, why would I tell anybody that I really loved a man who would betray me in the worst way I could imagine? That's not exactly a high point in my life."

"Yeah, I see what you mean." Morgan chewed meditatively. "What happened now?"

"Oh, shit." He was all of a sudden surrounded by the week's pileup of manure. "Casey happened." For a very short moment, he could feel tears welling up, but he managed to blink them away. "Casey found out I had a crush on him, and he found out in a very, very bad way. He was not laughing."

"Caught you high fiving yourself outside his window, eh?"

"Morgan!" Then he remembered that things were so much worse than that. "No, it was, you remember the other night when I said I was going to the comic store, and you had to go do a family thing with Anna?" Tuesday night. He'd been having the best night of his life _Tuesday night_ . Only forty-eight hours ago he'd still been on top of the world.

"Yeah, and boring as hell, too."

"Well, I went into Brendel's for a coke and I met this guy. And we went out into the alley. And we . . ."

"In the alley! I knew you'd do anything!" Morgan was beaming at him. Just when he looked like he might break into applause, all his enthusiasm left the building. "But wait, what about Sarah? This isn't just mind-cheating. It still counts with a man."

"No." Chuck tried to tie up another box of grief. "Sarah and I, she'll never commit. We already agreed we're going to be just friends. I never wanted that, but even when she's with me, she's not, really, and I couldn't." He shook his head. "She broke my heart every day. I couldn't."

"Aw, jeez, I'm sorry. Forget her. Okay?" He patted Chuck on the back, looking uncomfortable. Morgan's absolution.

It wasn't too far from what he'd done, in the end. Forgotten her.

"So then your wandering eye wanders to Terminator: The Green Shirt Chronicles. He's a stud, I'll give him that. But then what's with the guy Tuesday night and the alley sex?"

"That guy, he, uh . . . he looks just like Casey. They could be twin brothers of different mothers."

"No!"

"I knew it was never going to happen with Casey. And Danny, he was really nice. He liked me. I wanted . . . so . . . and then Casey saw us." There was no other good way to cover that.

"Holy separated at birth, Batman! This is better than General Hospital!" At Chuck's incredulous look, he got defensive. "Hey, my mom watches that."

"I didn't know he was there, I, it was stupid and crazy, and when he came in to work Wednesday, he totally flipped out. I've never seen anybody so angry. He slammed me up against the wall so hard I think it scrambled my brains. He called me . . . " He couldn't go there. It hurt too much.

"So, yeah, in the end, my true relationship genius comes out. First the evil betrayer of worlds," _and the Fulcrum agent and the CIA lifer_ , "and now the exploding fag-hater." He tried to smile, but it didn't work. "I guess that's an improvement, right?"

"It's none of his fucking business who you want to be with! John Casey can go fuck himself! And you can tell him it was me who said so! I don't care what he says or does to me. I bet if I worked on it hard enough, I could get Big Mike to fire his ass."

Not gonna happen, not with the NSA involved. But it sure was nice to hear. There just wasn't anything like somebody who'd always take your side. Now he felt guilty again about the stalking incident. He'd saved Morgan's life, but he hadn't been on Morgan's side. Now he kind of understood what Morgan was trying to tell him earlier, about them. "Thanks, buddy. I appreciate that."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing, I guess. Just hope he isn't pissed off enough to catch me in another dark alley, when I'm all by myself."

"Don't worry. He'll have to go through me."

Chuck didn't even want to think about that. He shivered in the warm sun as a chill touched his skin. But he'd faced it all so far. He could do it today, too. "I feel a lot better. We'd better go back to work. Except – I need another sandwich."

To his enormous and ongoing relief, Casey hadn't shown up yet, and he continued not to show up all day. Chuck relaxed. He could hear his heart valves lub-dubbing _thank-you, thank-you_.

When he found out why Casey wasn't there – Sarah stopped by at lunch to say she'd be staying in Casey's apartment while he was on a classified away mission – he was worried, but banished it. Casey was tougher than any ordinary human. He'd be fine. And if Chuck happened to wonder whether he was okay over the next few days, well, he'd do that for anybody.

On Saturday, at an Angels game with Ellie and Awesome, he flashed on Luis Bunuel Maricopa, a high-ranking member of Los Zetas. The infamous Mexican drug cartel had Maricopa in Los Angeles arranging arms shipments, but General Beckman adamantly refused his or Sarah's participation in the takedown. It was far too dangerous with only one handler, she said, and there was no way she was leaving Chuck unguarded while Sarah helped with the bust.

Chuck was more than willing to go with that. He didn't think he was in any danger at home, except maybe dying of boredom, but Casey'd saved his butt too many times. His presence on a mission was non-negotiable.

Life without bad guys, rockets, and insane risks was an unnerving flashback to the way things used to be. When he wasn't at work, he was wandering around the apartment bugging Ellie ("If you can't find something else to do, help me pick out table favors!"), wondering where Morgan was (with Anna), playing a preview of Mafia II (which should have been exciting, but wasn’t), and just generally bored senseless.

By Tuesday, Chuck was beginning to wonder why he'd ever wanted that back.

Casey showed up back at work on Wednesday. After such a long time – hadn't it been forever? -- with no livid assasins hovering over him, Chuck was unsuspecting. His favorite badass walked up, smiling, saying, "Hey, Chuck. Good to see you. I brought you breakfast. Left it in your locker."

Sure. Everybody could break into his locker, and probably had at some point, even if Morgan swore he'd never given out the combination. Why should this man be the exception? His breath caught when Casey squeezed his shoulder. That was certainly different.

Casey moved on, but Chuck stood there staring after him. Well, this is more like it, he thought. Maybe Casey, in between shooting people and blowing shit up, had some time to think about things and decided to make up to Chuck for his mean spy-bad guy behavior of last week.

With a big grin, he checked for Emmett, then slid off to the back and opened up his locker. Sitting on the bottom, the extra shirt and backpack shoved to the rear, was an extra-large coffee and a small brown paper bag. The coffee was still hot, and he sucked in the sharp aroma before swirling a mouthful. It was the good stuff, too. God bless John Casey. He sure knew make-up food. The bag crackled in his hands as he opened it. It was still a little warm, too. Sticking his nose inside, he inhaled deeply. The scent of almonds stampeded through his brain, carrying a deluge of information with it.

  
_2 CH4 + 2 NH3 + 3 O2 → 2 HCN + 6 H2O  
dinner party of the dead  
whaling  
harpoons Eva Braun  
gasping confusion nausea  
4-Dimethylaminophenol (4-DMAP) has been proposed in Germany as a more rapid antidote than nitrites with  
Zyklon B Jonestown  
white faces go cherry red_   


He was allergic to almonds, but there were almonds and there was death.

When he lifted the coffee and drank again -- his therapist would've called it self medication; he would've called it pretty dumb given the possible poisoning thing -- his hand shook so badly that he squeezed too tight, popped the safety lid. Hot coffee splattered all over his shirt and tie. He barely felt it.

It couldn't be real. It had to be a mistake. The Intersect must be making a mistake. It was all about his own smell-o-vision. Chuck didn't _know_ what cyanide smelled like. Therefore, the Intersect might respond to anything with the scent of almond. He tore the scone apart – didn't matter if it got on his skin, right?

He couldn't find any almonds.

It had to be a mistake.

He flushed the scone crumbles because if he didn't, then somebody – Jeff -- would surely find them and eat them, no matter what he did with the bag. This was the Buy More. Nobody should get hurt that way at work. It seemed a lot more dangerous here than it used to be, and random poisonings weren't covered by worker's comp.

Okay, it wasn't random. It was all about Chuck. He knew he'd been self-centered in the past. Maybe he still was sometimes. But yeah, this, whatever this was, was all about him.

Maybe it was all about his defective sense of smell, or his defective brain. Heaven, or his father -- no, probably not even his father -- only knew what kind of connections that thing inside his head made. He threw the coffee into the toilet, too, though he'd probably already be dead if . . . somehow he wasn't hungry or thirsty any more. Breakfast was no longer on the menu.

Casey was waiting for him outside the swinging doors. With a smile and a bump of shoulders, he said, "So, how was the scone? I know they're your favorite." With a tip of his head and a wink, he headed off for the large appliances.

That.

Was so weird.

Chuck shook his head, hoping to shake out whatever was constipating his brain. He could only remember seeing Casey smile in real pleasure after a successful mission. The smile was usually accompanied by a ten dollar cigar. His smiles didn’t show up for ordinary things, and certainly not for the exciting large-as-life appearance of – ta daaaaa – Chuck, showing up for work in the Buy More. What was up with the smiles? Not to mention that he’d expect to see Casey wink at him only under terrible duress.

The two swallows of coffee swam around in his stomach for hours.

It seemed like half the time when Chuck looked up, Casey was . . . looking at him. That sounded so banal compared to what being looked at by Casey was like. It was like he was coming from across dimensions, trying to figure Chuck out. Alien Casey Invasion. Outwardly, he was a friendly alien. That was more disturbing than last week's shrink-wrapped rage.

There were only so many times Chuck could see that smile without wondering if Casey was calculating him, weight times height, judging how much effort it would take to haul his lifeless body out to a shallow hole in some remote sucking swamp. It was just creepy.

Casey's anger? He could see it coming toward him like a semi in his lane. It was believable; in some ways understandable. Chuck hadn't forgotten that this was all because of him. On the other hand, Casey's _interest_ was beyond strange. Casey had never been interested in anything about Chuck. Never asked a personal question, didn't want his opinion on anything, sure as hell didn't want any play-by-play of his emotional state.

Chuck tried not to think about any of it, going about his nerdly business as usual. He took calls, scheduled appointments, kept an eye on the greenshirts, and hoped desperately for an immediate install that would get him the hell out of here. No such luck.

Even compared to last week, he'd never been so glad to leave work for the day.

Or quite so uncomfortable about arriving the next.

Thursday morning wasn't helped by the discovery of a small, gift-wrapped box on the bottom of his locker, in the same spot where the grease stain from the scone had been. He looked at it warily. It was about the size of a big hand grenade, with extra room for packing material, and he approached it as such. He looked it over. Nobody in this place would leave him a present.

Well, maybe Morgan, but only in the case of an Important Gift-Giving Occasion, and he wouldn't leave it here.

There were no wires attached to the box, not that he could see. He picked up the yardstick that Jeff used Monday for getting food – ugh! -- out from under the refrigerator and poked it warily. Nothing happened, so he rapped the top sharply. The ribbon didn't like that so much, but the box itself didn't respond. He used a needle-nosed pliers and the yardstick to untie the ribbon. It was knotted, so he used a scissors to cut it, reaching one hand around from the side of the locker, keeping his head and body as far away and protected as possible.

Nothing happened.

By this time, he was starting roll his eyes over his own paranoia. Either way, it didn't seem to be something that could be set off by rough handling. So he finally grabbed it, ripped away the paper, and pulled off the lid. The first, most noticeable, things in the box were a pair of small bottles of Swiss Navy Silicone Lubricant. Like WD40 for a Swiss Army knife? "Oh. _Oh_. Ho-ooo." The tied-together horizontal stack of colorful flat things that looked like condom packets was . . . a stack of condoms.

Not cheap ones you could get at the drugstore, these were flavored, colored, ribbed and swirled. There was even a tiny box of three "Dick's Formalwear" tuxedo-prints. These were off the internet, or from a sex shop like Bryce took him to once. "To complete your education," Bryce said. He felt blood surge to his hairline. The goods got stuffed back in the box as fast as his shaking hands could manage, and he didn't waste a second slapping on the boxtop and slamming the locker shut.

An unidentified person had gone to some effort, and forked over a fair and reasonable amount of cash, to humiliate Chuck in front of his co-workers. Somebody who knew he liked men, because -- as far as he knew -- women didn't have much use for expensive slippery stuff. All he needed was to have this crew speculating on his newborn sex life, when Chuck himself didn't even know what to think about it. And – he knew these people – it would be loudly, and in public, with the chanting of words even Morgan hadn't used since junior high.

Leaning against the locker, his whole body drooped. That person had to be Casey. Sarah, the only other one who knew about his fling with Danny, wouldn't do this. So Casey's behavior wasn't just a crazy glitch; there really was something going on, and yeah. It was all about Chuck

Hot-faced and miserable, Chuck opened up the locker and tossed the box and its wrappings into the garbage bin.

When he got out onto the floor, Casey's casual wave was accompanied by his cheerful, "Morning, Chuck, how's it going?" Casey and cheerful were two things that didn't go together very well in the first place – less so when there were two bandaids stuck to the tips of his fingers.

Chuck turned away and groaned.

He almost did the same at lunch, when it would've been far more damaging. Like usual, Lester tossed a wadded-up napkin at the garbage bin. Like unusual, _he got up and walked it to the trash bin_ when he missed. Pushing open the swinging cover, he reached for the bright colors of the wrapping paper and pulled out the box. "What have we here?" he trilled. "Looks like somebody looked a gift condom in the mouth."

"Horse," mumbled Chuck. "Gift horse."

"I'll say." Morgan held up a 3XL. "This obviously prevents the spread of equine encephalitis through the human male vector." The heads turning in unison would have been funnier if Chuck wasn't staring, too. "What? I watch the Discovery Channel."

And then Lester really did start singing, pumping hands full of condom packets in rhythm. "You and me baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel."

"We appreciate your input!" They were all bouncing and singing now, pumping their arms up and down with Andrew doing the percussion on an empty pop can, altogether not looking that bad for a conga line in The Nue Condomaniac Revue.

"Who wants a Lifewater?" Without waiting for an answer, Chuck was through the doorway and out into the hall.

In the end, after a frenzy of nerve-wracking speculation, nobody figured out where the condoms came from. Now that he thought about it, 'Casey gave them to Chuck' wasn't the most obvious conclusion. When he finally escaped to the beach later on, his sigh of relief was so loud, deep, and heartfelt that it probably confused migrating whales.

Thank God it was Friday.

"Want a ride to work?"

"I, uh . . ."

He didn't know how to say no.

If he hadn't been so uncomfortable, he'd have been . . . really comfortable. They chatted. Casey never chatted. There was a bit of weekend movie discussion. They argued about whether the Kings, Casey's favorite hockey team, could play the Angels on the baseball diamond and still win – complete with, "No way." "Way!" Casey's favorite food of all time was his grandmother's molasses cookies. He'd never found anything else like them, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside -- and she hadn't handed down the recipe. She probably didn't have one.

Then they got to work, stowed their stuff, did their respective thing.

It was so many kinds of wrong Chuck didn't even know how to count them all.

There was only one way this could be for real. Casey could play any role; he'd seen him – DJ, animal trainer, aerobics instructor. Once he'd been a guide for Hollywood Fantasy Tours so the CIA could arrest a visiting Chinese porn star; she was a liaison between an offshoot of the Suey Sing Association and the 14K Triad. He never asked what Casey did that fulfilled her Fantasy. He really didn't want to know.

In this incarnation, he figured, Casey was A Friend. Maybe he was even A Good Friend. Somebody you'd want to hang out with, somebody who'd want to hang out with you. Didn't that just stick it in and twist. How stupid was it, how stupid was he, that he'd always wanted to hang out with Casey? To be friends, be accepted, get on Casey's good side?

All this time, Chuck had been sure Casey had a good side. Now he was wondering if the last special assignment had spun the only partly-domesticated Casey back to a more feral state. Because he was standing in front of a locker that now held a first aid kit with a tourniquet, sutures, and Quick-Clot. His head spun with staccato images.

The footage of the stuff used in combat situations was horrific enough _blood so much blood_ as Chuck swayed helplessly against the locker, but the documentation of the animal testing _oh God they shot them, innocent goats who didn't do anything_ was almost worse.

Warned by the drool that gathered in the back of his throat, he made it to the toilet before giving the gods his Froot Loops. It wasn't until he got back and was gingerly removing the first-aid kit, which had taken on a pretty grim aspect by now, that he noticed the small glass vial containing an even smaller dark oval thing that looked like a pill. He held it up and squinted at it.

A strange, manic laugh from behind him interrupted his thoughts, and he banged into the open locker door when he whirled around.

"Jumpy, are we?" asked Jeff. "But I see that you're prepared." He pulled an identical vial, pill inside, from his pants pocket. "They'll never take me alive, either." Another crazy giggle floated down the hallway as Jeff wandered off.

Chuck just stared after him. It wasn't a joke, wasn't a weird present, it was a message.

 _Use the pill or you'll be needing the kit._

Calm down. Take deep breaths. More deep breaths. He'd never had asthma, but his lungs were so constricted he was beginning to wonder if fear could make it happen. Breathe. _Breathe_ , dammit.

For nearly a year Casey'd been treating Chuck like a human being. He wouldn't call it friendship, but it was at least a teaspoon of grudging respect. Instead of walking the line, Chuck had screwed up what little he could get, and now he had a bizarre Plastic Poseable Friend with the Optional Scary Gift pack. He couldn't even imagine what the point was.

If Casey really wanted him dead, he'd be dead. There wouldn't be anything Chuck could do about it except, if he was lucky, say goodbye.

Casey liked rules, though. Maybe he was following the letter of the law: keep the Intersect alive. There was nothing, he suspected, in Beckman's orders that read "Intersect: don't freak out." So it must be some kind of joke. That was it; Casey was playing a practical joke, a series of them, a little revenge thing for doing what he did with Danny. A little payback for having to protect – and, by default, spend time with -- a guy who liked men.

More importantly, a guy who liked his identical twin. What would everybody think if they saw him spending time with Danny? They'd think he was with Casey. He'd probably realized by now that Chuck had a crush on him; maybe he'd known it all along. But he hadn't done anything about it until Chuck might make him look like a queer, too.

"Listen," he said after too many beers on his and Sarah's fake date, "do you think it's possible that Casey . . . doesn't like me very much? That, in fact, he hates my continued existence and would rather I vanished unexpectedly?" Since he tried to avoid her as much as possible nowadays, the fact that he was sitting here at all meant something.

Avoiding both his handlers, he realized, would be a major ongoing challenge.

"Chuck, do you think you've had enough?"

"I mean it. I've been getting some very strange, uh, vibes from him lately. It's wearing me down," he admitted.

"Just because he doesn't seem like the moody type doesn't mean he's not." Sarah finished her white wine. "He wasn't too pleased with you last week, but I have to admit I've never seen him quite like this. Although it's not necessarily a bad mood. He seems almost . . . happy."

In other words, she was no help at all. At least the CIA paid for the food.

Chuck spent another sleepless night huddled under his blanket, hoping tomorrow would bring an end to the Buy More domestic terrorism.

Saturday morning found him still huddled, this time in the Cage. It was his own little vacation, away from the hustle and bustle. Plus, he wasn't sure he could stay awake long enough to hold a phone conversation. He kept startling awake at random times to rub away the circuits imprinted in his cheek. It wasn't sand and sun, but it was a lot safer than in here than out there. He had no idea whether he was fixing a Vista or a Windows 95.

All he knew was that it was the same one he'd started at 8 am. All he could think about every time he woke up was his as-yet unopened locker, and it was almost four in the afternoon. Morgan had brought him some lunch. There was no reason for Casey to be back here, thank God, so Chuck hadn't even seen him. He held no illusions about whether Casey'd seen _him_.

But.

All day long, all he could see on the backs of his eyelids was the locker door, closed and padlocked, waiting. At 4:30, the tension dragged him out of his chair, and he found himself standing very still in front of that same locker door. There was nobody around. Slowly his shaking hand crept through empty space and his fingertips touched the lock. With a deep breath, he dialed the combination.

The door opened with a comforting, familiar snick and rattle. Less comforting was the flat, narrow, five-inch box – like a jewelry box, almost -- exposed on its floor.

He had to do this. He was a man, almost a spy, old enough and smart enough to handle his own problems. It was just a joke. Casey didn't want to hurt him. If he did, Chuck would be lying in a desert somewhere with oddly twisted arms and legs, bleeding out internally. Casey was handcuffed by his job. Casey couldn't hurt him.

Not much more than he already had.

The box contained a three-inch-long cylindrical roll of cloth, black and silky – he poked at it with a finger -- with something small and hard hidden inside it. The cloth was wrapped around the thing, one end of the wrap lying on the top like a pull-tab. Terrified to look, and completely hacked off at himself about that, he grabbed the tab end and pulled.

Something shiny flew out and skipped across the floor. He scrambled after it. It was a bullet. Oh, Christ Almighty. A bullet. He'd never touched a bullet before. Almost an inch long, it was smooth, with a gold-colored case and a copper-colored tip, flat at the base and sort of rounded-off at what he presumed was the working end. He turned it around in his fingers, gauging the size and weight. Since he hadn't actually been reading the Guns & Ammo, he had no idea what kind of bullet it was, but somehow it managed to be both inert and frightening at the same time.

He picked up the length of cloth by the middle, ends dangling. What was this thing? Too narrow to be a scarf, not built like a tie, it was just about long enough to knot around his head like one of those kung fu headbands. Or.

A blindfold.

Major John Casey, NSA, his handler, savior, plastic friend, had given him a bullet and a blindfold.

Chuck knew he had a girlish scream, but he hadn't known he could be squashed like a little kid at the merest sign of disapproval. He wasn't sure whether a bullet and a blindfold counted as mere, but that was his story and he was sticking to it. Because anything else was going to make his heart stop beating, and he was a man, a spy, old enough and smart enough to handle his own problems.

He carefully folded the cloth back up and tucked the bullet into it, then walked out onto the floor. Casey popped into his line of vision all by himself. Chuck didn't even have to look for him.

"Hey," smiled Casey. "I rented Iron Man. You want to come over and watch it with me later? I'll get the pizza."

"John." Chuck studied the other man carefully. The only thing strange about him was the smile . . . and the offer. Everything else was as normal as Chuck's life had been for the past couple years. His voice was so quiet and not-shaking he hardly recognized it when the words finally came out. "What's wrong with you?"

The smile hung crookedly on Casey's lips like a leftover Christmas decoration. Chuck reached over and tucked the silk-wrapped bullet into Casey's pants pocket. There didn't seem to be an answer forthcoming, so Chuck turned around and left.

At least he finally got a decent night's sleep.

On Sunday he only left his room for food and the occasional bathroom break.

It didn't stop Monday from coming.

It was the beginning of an exciting new week. Chuck tried to shake out his shoulders. It didn't work. He'd been under so much stress– it was amazing what it really meant to have a stalker, someone who could kill with Chuck a flick of his wrist any time he wanted, even if he really didn't want to, even if he only wanted to mess with Chuck's head. He was thanking God it was a half-day for him when Casey, who wasn't even here working, snuck up behind him. He didn't register Casey's presence until the moment before he spoke.

Chuck almost twisted out of his shoes, the same old way he always did.

"Come on. We've got to meet Sarah over at Fryman Park. She says she's got a line on a couple Fulcrum possibles and wants you to have a look."

So, what, now Fulcrum mommies were jogging their strollers up the canyon? He'd heard weirder things, he guessed. And besides, Casey'd never lied to him about a mission, right? Sarah had lied, but Casey handed out bad news out like a pail of day-old fish.

When they took the turnoff for Coldwater Canyon instead of Fryman, he knew he was toast. "Sarah's not going to be here, is she?"

"Nah." Casey turned toward him with that strange grin. "You've been acting so weird I figured you wouldn't go with me if I asked, so I lied."

All of a sudden it seemed really cold in the car. The air conditioning wasn't on; a minute ago he'd been half-melted. _Chuck_ had been acting weird. Yeah. "Let me out, Casey, okay? Please."

"We'll be getting out in just a minute."

In just a minute they were in an otherwise empty parking lot proclaiming it belonged to the Tree People. In the middle of the day, it was cool and shady. He looked down the three paths that converged; he couldn't see or hear anybody, only the birds in the trees and the scuffling of small animals and probably snakes. He hated snakes.

"Let's take a little walk."

Casey loomed over his back, guiding him forward. Chuck tried to stifle a shudder even as the hand warmed his neck up to normal body temperature. He wasn't much of a spy, but at least he knew that showing fear was an outright invitation. The gnarled branches of the live oaks seemed to reach out, clawing at him with their crazy shadows.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

He sounded so . . . happy. The man had to be deranged. "Casey, what are we doing here?" His voice was completely level, betraying absolutely no nervousness. Chuck had nerves of steel. He could hear them clanging together in the background.

The low voice rasped in the quiet. "I wanted some privacy, okay? A few minutes alone, no Buy More idiots, no Sarah, none of your family or friends watching. I guess we've gone far enough. Turn around."

It was just a joke. Casey wouldn't hurt him. Just another practical joke, playing Scare The Nerd for a good laugh. He turned slowly and faced him, full on. Casey seemed even bigger than usual, sliding his right hand under the light jacket he was wearing.

Oh, fuck. Casey wasn't just going to hurt him, kick his nerdy bisexual ass, he was going all the way with this.

"Close your eyes."

"No. No, I won't." He wasn't about to give Casey the satisfaction. Never mind that he'd been wrong, that it was no joke, that none of it was a joke, that pissed-off assassins didn't really pull their punches for scared computer nerds. This was all the defiance he had left.

"Then hold out your hands."

"Why?"

Casey was implacable. "Do it."

He did. It didn't matter anyway.

From his shoulder holster Casey lifted a small black thing and put it in Chuck's cupped hands.

Chuck was so stunned that he couldn't understand what the thing was. And then he thought he'd been handed something dead, which was so horrible he almost threw it into the woods before he realized it was alive, warming up his frozen fingers. It had coal-colored fur just coming out of the fuzzy stage, and was small enough to fit lengthwise on one of his hands with only the front paws hanging over. It opened one bluish eye and made a tiny noise at him, one that would be a meow some day.

Chuck's heart caved in.

"Batgirl," he breathed. With one finger he carefully smoothed the fur between the oversized ears. "I had a cat like you once. You were my best friend. I mean, she was. Sometimes I thought she loved me more than Ellie and Morgan put together." He could hardly breathe, but he couldn't stop talking. "She slept on my head every night. Ellie always said that's how I got this hair." He petted the kitten's vibrating body. "She was the only one I could talk to when Mom left. But she ran away."

Something wet fell on the kitten. Raining, he thought. The droplet hung there in the black fuzz. "I looked for her. She was lost. But I couldn't find her." For weeks he'd searched the neighborhood, putting up posters. Nobody ever called.

"She got hit by a car."

He looked up. Casey was hard to see in the rain. Hard to hear. "What?"

"Your cat got hit by a car. Your mom was gone. Your dad was crazy. Ellie didn't know how to tell you."

"But . . . but . . ." He held the kitten against his chest. It helped stop the bleeding. "I. She should've told." The rain rolled down his cheeks.

"You were just a kid, Chuck. So was Ellie."

"Yeah. I know." He sounded like a little kid, his high-pitched voice hurting his ears.

A hand the size of a laptop reached for him. "Give me the cat. I'm gonna put it down."

Chuck's shock held him stiff enough to keep him from falling completely apart, or falling on his knees. Only psychos hurt animals. Casey killed people. God, it couldn't be true.

"No," he blurted. There was a speck of defiance left, after all. Maybe Casey's last job had pushed him over the edge. It didn't matter. "I don't care what happens. I'm not giving you the cat. I know you're angry. Either you tell me right now what I can do to fix this, or you do what you came here to do."

"This isn't really . . ." Casey looked strangely resigned. "Okay, fine."

That. . . he wasn't expecting that. Talk must be as cheap as everybody said. If only Chuck had known that his whole babbling life. The man didn't have a gun in his shoulder holster, not that that meant anything. When Casey took the back of Chuck's head in one giant hand, his other palm angled firmly along Chuck's rigid jaw, he shut his eyes and waited for the crunch. He was such a miserable coward. He might have to hear it, but he didn't have to look into Casey's eyes when it happened.

The soft pressure against his lips came and went. It flipped his eyes wide open again. His mouth fell open, too. He just stood there, unblinking, unbreathing.

"I didn't think so." Casey stepped away and shrugged. "Never mind."

"What?" It was barely a whisper. He was still paralyzed.

"You tossed the stuff I gave you. I saw the first aid kit in the garbage, and Lester with the condoms. You handed back your own bullet." He looked mildly amused. "I already figured you weren't interested. Give me the cat."

He couldn't process the things Casey was saying. Doing. He looked so vastly disinterested in the most important thing that had happened to Chuck since the Intersect took over his life – _this_ thing. "You – you want her back?"

"She's a baby. I took her for a couple hours to show you. There's a box with a blanket and some water." He waved in the general direction of the car.

None of that clarified anything. "What's going on here? I need it in really little words right now, all right? I don't understand anything." The last of his energy dribbling away, he very slowly folded himself to the dirt, kitten and all.

Casey sat down right there beside him, staring at some trees. To Chuck's astonishment, a pink glow crawled up his face. "When you were with him, at the hotel. You picked up somebody who looked exactly like me. He could've been my double. I listened to you. I heard everything. I hated it."

"Yeah. I got that." His head hurt. He didn’t know where to look, what to do with himself. This had to be over soon. His brain was overloaded to the point where he could barely function.

"No, you don't. You really don't get it. I don't hate you. I don't hate gay men. I hated that it wasn't me."

The noise Chuck made was too much like a whimper. He lifted his head, wondering if Casey was fucking with him. "You wanted to be with me?"

"When I got back from the mission, I wanted . . ." Casey didn't look like he knew what to look at either. The trees, apparently, were very interesting. He stood. "Let's go. You can pick up the cat in a couple weeks. The woman said it was the best way."

Chuck stood up as fast as he could without disrupting the catnap. "Let's not go! You just kissed me! I thought you wanted me _dead_. You left me a suicide pill and a bullet! With a blindfold!"

"Things you'd need if we were partners. First aid for you, me or Sarah. Operators get hurt. There's not always a medic around. Pretty little pill so you'd never have to worry about torture. Same reason, times ten." A harsh laugh. "Condoms were self-explanatory."

Casey didn't just walk; he strode toward the car. Chuck followed, almost on his heels. "Casey, wait!" Casey stopped. Chuck stopped, too, so fast and sharp that he tipped forward in the attempt to keep the kitten from squashing against that rigid back. He took a deep breath, speaking softly into Casey's ear. "The bullet."

"It's your lucky bullet, the one that didn't kill you. Everybody's got one."

Everybody. Yeah.

Chuck couldn't even begin to fathom why Casey had a bullet that didn't kill him. "The kitten?"

He turned, finally looking at Chuck. Their noses were mere inches apart. "I wanted to give you something you could never bear to throw away."

Casey was white now instead of pink. Chuck had never seen him so unyielding. "Look," Casey said. "I heard your conversation with Morgan. I had a team recording you from the street. You sounded interested. It's more than obvious you're not. I've had enough fun here."

"I like you better when you don't want me dead."

"Prove it."

There was something strange about the look Casey leveled at him. It made Chuck think he was just as confused and hurt by Chuck throwing his presents away as Chuck was by the every-day horror matinee. He couldn't understand what it was that made him think so, but he was willing to bet his life on it.

Chuck was still standing, after all. And in his hands there was a kitten trying unsuccessfully to nurse at the tip of his finger, its frustration leaving needle-sharp indentations. Batgirl used to bring him bad presents, except she tended toward dead voles. Casey was like a cat, then . . . a giant, dangerous, sabretooth cat. Chuck was lucky he hadn't found a pile of blood-spattered Fulcrum agents in front of his locker.

He was being courted by a Black Ops-trained lunatic. Who the hell would think a suicide pill made a nice substitute for flowers and candy?

John Casey would.

Romance was not dead.

He held up the kitten and, equally silent, Casey took it from him. Casey treated that tiny meow factory with the utmost care. Chuck was, oddly, not surprised. Safely installed in the carrier on the front seat, the kitten walked a few almost steady steps, then flopped back down, tired out from her long day. He knew all about that, too.

Casey's hair had that spiky feel against his lips that meant he'd just had it cut. He crowded the man against the car frame while he was still facing away, leaning against Casey's back, whispering to the bristle on the nape of his neck. "I wanted you. I couldn't have you."

"You never asked." The big knuckles were turning white with their grip on the roof's edge.

Chuck covered them with his hands and stroked the rigid fingers. "It was too important. You were too important."

"You didn't have any trouble asking her."

Again, and again, and again. "She won't take me. Why should you?" Chuck felt the shrug along his own collarbone, and shifted so Casey could turn. His eyes were brighter than the sky-haze above them.

"You're really a pain in the ass, Bartowski."

"Not as much as I hope to be."

"Smartass. I never said I was easy. I can still break you in half."

"Oh, don't I know it." He could feel his grin soften as the tension gradually drained out of both of them. The midday sun settled comfortably on his shoulders.

Then Casey was coaxing him close with a light touch of fingers, kissing him, dusting dry, tender kisses against his lips like he wasn't sure of his welcome. It was nothing Chuck ever imagined happening, not with Casey. When Casey infiltrated his fantasies, it was a real relief to have somebody who would just take him -- not kiss and run away, but really want it, want him, push him down and do what they both wanted. And if Chuck suspected that Casey might be a little too rough with someone who wasn't tiny little Carina or beautiful Ilsa, someone who was a man, well, he didn't think much about that.

Because nothing would ever happen anyway.

This, it was happening. This was . . . this was about Casey liking him. The uncertain kisses were so piercingly sweet they made his pulse stutter. This was the only time; Chuck would never have that power again. A few kisses would expose all his secrets – how much Chuck wanted, how much he cared. So for this moment he just went with it, relaxed against Casey's hard body and tasting the sweet tang of his mouth.

He basked in the kisses, letting their warmth fill him. There was no telling about later, but right now Casey liked him. Liked him enough to smash his stone tablet of commandments, enough to watch Iron Man. To ask Ellie what Chuck loved most, ever in the whole world. It was more than Chuck could've thought to hope for. He rolled on the swell of kisses like dreaming. He didn't want to wake up.

Except his kisses were leaning away. Casey said, "I. It's okay," but around his eyes he was confused and a little sad, like his birthday breakfast turned out to be oatmeal.

Finally the diode blinked on. There was a reason why Casey – tough, angry Casey – would hook up again with a woman who'd tie him up and abandon him in a hotel room. It wasn't a secret submissive streak. Carina was the only one there.

"No." He slid a hand up Casey's corded neck to hold him in place. "You're really . . . special," he mumbled against Casey's cheek. Why wait for his body to betray him when he could blurt it right out? Hell, why wait for anything when he'd been ready to hook up with Danny in an alley? "I've been thinking about you for a long time." They weren't in junior high, they were in a deserted parking lot in a canyon nobody ever went to.

Casey liked him. A lot.

It wasn't any hardship to wrap his arms around Casey and just go for it with everything he had; everything that was piled up in the dusty back room since Bryce, Jill, Sarah. And . . . and . . . Casey had that, too. He was going for it, too. Under Chuck's mouth he was wide open as his eyes drifted shut. It was insane. It made an arcing thrill explode in Chuck's brain.

For two years Casey had been the snarling rottweiler, prevailing against all enemies, but who was there for him? Here in this dusty parking lot, there was only Chuck.

He wasn't even sure if Casey noticed the fumbled button and zipper. That pushed buttons Chuck didn't even know he _had_. The hollow moan as Casey's cock jerked in Chuck's hand vibrated through both their bodies. Hot and heavy and thick, there was enough room between them to wrap his hand around that thing, moving the stretch of loose skin up and down the shaft.

He stilled his hand, kissed the corner of Casey's mouth, waited until his eyes opened, answered their raw blue question. "Morgan was right. I'll do anything," he said. "For you."

Casey rewarded him with the kind of cut-off whine that meant it was time to dive for treasure. So he pulled his hand out gently, covering the goods as he pushed the jeans away; he knew what the grate of zipper felt like and Casey wasn't wearing any underwear. Why did he think Casey would ever go anything but commando? Casey always came equipped for the mission. If he'd been hoping for some love up a blind canyon road, he was definitely in uniform.

Chuck got down on his knees in the dirt, the way he was glad not to have to for Danny because it would've hurt. He didn't care about that now. Danny was a great guy, but Casey was serious business. A look up told him Casey was so serious, he had a clenched jaw like Death was after him, and it usually was. Only this time it would be that poetry death at Chuck's hands, and it was going to be lots more fun than facing down the Fourth Horseman.

There were sharp pebbles in the dust, but they disappeared when he leaned close enough to catch the scent of Casey - the real, unfiltered stuff, dark and heady, warm ale on a summer's day.

The weight of Casey's balls was so tender in the cup of Chuck's hand. He almost couldn't understand how somebody so tough could be so vulnerable. He rolled them in his palm like they could calm him in his hour of need, which – hello, _right now_. He didn't know what to do. He was in way, way over his head. He had no idea how to impress Casey, how to make him feel.

There was no way to stay alive unless he swam, and no way to swim unless he jumped in. Yeah. That. And he covered the crown with his mouth, giving head and getting it in the simplest way he knew. He wanted this worse than anything he ever wanted before. The head bumped up against his soft palate, but he understood what it meant to give and get at the same time. There would always be some bumps.

If he was right, Casey was enjoying the learning curve. They were rocking. The car was rocking. Their combined weight, between him latched onto Casey's hips so he didn't have an instant replay of Friday morning and Casey pushing back, had a reverb going with the car's suspension. He had no idea what he was doing, just trying to fit as much in as he could and still suck. The heft of cock in his mouth was so full and good he couldn't imagine never having it again.

He almost went over backwards when Casey pushed him away with a choked cry, and he didn't know why until come rained over his face, his shirt, his tie.

He looked up, hands on his knees, panting. When he could talk, he did. Of course. "How long you been saving that?" He palmed the stuff off one cheek and wiped it on his shirt. No loss.

Casey was catching his breath, too. He was so freaking hot leaning against the car with his jeans open, black polo shirt rucked up over the six-pack, body lax with satisfaction. His still-wet, half-hard cock curved in the sun. "Since I met you."

Chuck was content to sit on his heels for a minute and look his fill. "Right, yeah. You, what, you didn't touch it for two years?"

"No jerking off to the asset, Bartowski. It's in the manual."

"You are such a liar."

"RTFM," Casey replied, with what could be, in time and with a lot more practice, a lazy grin. He reached down and took a swipe at the come on Chuck's face. To Chuck's surprise, he lifted his fingers to his own mouth and sucked it off thoughtfully. That was when Chuck's nonstop erection got that little bit too uncomfortable.

He unwrapped himself and stood, pushing into Casey's face, like that was ever threatening, and growled -- as best he could -- "I don't have to read the manual. You're the tech. You handle my problem."

"You got a problem, Chuck?" His look turned the sun-baked dirt parking lot into a steam bath.

Moisture prickled Chuck's skin. "I sure do."

"Well, then, let's take a look at it."

Casey's smile made Chuck want to get back on his knees, but he wouldn't. He was going to get his from this hard-assed, soft-hearted bastard. A quick turn for both of them and Casey's hand on his shoulder pushed him onto the enormous back seat with a plop. He never even reached for his jeans before Casey had his cock freed and standing at attention. He was a great drill sergeant.

"Nice," Casey said, testing the weight in his hand. Chuck sucked in a big breath that absolutely wasn't a gasp. "You ever wonder why I drive an ocean liner, Chuck? It's so I can feel the waves."

"Uh huh." Shoulders propped up against the car door, he was already feeling them with every move of that hand. He stared down over his rumpled shirt and come-stained tie at the head of his cock being massaged between a set of oversized knuckles. It looked like it should hurt, but it felt _incredible_. Casey's hands were so long that the rest of his fingers and the heel of his hand rubbed the shaft just beneath.

It was dry, but he always did himself dry, he liked the extra friction, and wow, was it hot that Casey probably knew that?

He didn't spend much time thinking about it, because Casey was talking. And Chuck? Chuck was listening.

"There are a lot of things we could do, even in a confined space like this. Pay attention." Casey looked straight into Chuck's eyes. Even over the avalanche of sensation, Chuck managed to focus. "I could give you a blowjob. It'd be easy enough to lean over and lick your cock, run my tongue along the shaft. Suck you down, like you did to me."

He never heard anybody say things like that for real -- never believed people said that stuff. Porn was almost embarrassing to watch, it was mostly so tacky and dumb, and when it was hot, he felt guilty anyway, because who would ever treat a woman like that? Any day of the week, Casey's voice was aural sex; the man could probably talk him to orgasm. But now there was talking that was porn, and Casey's hand doing awesome things, and Chuck's bones started to melt.

"Big cars are great things, Chuck." His name was beautiful on Casey's mouth. "You could lean over the front seat and I could rim you. You know what that is?" Chuck knew, but he wanted to hear Casey say it, so he shook his head. It was all he was capable of right now. "That's where you bend over and I stick my tongue up your ass. I'd love doing that for you. You'd like it, too. It feels good."

The stroking hand was slow and steady, too slow for the kind of excitement that was hot-wiring him. Chuck really was gasping now, his face aflame. He didn't know what to do, torn between the hand and the voice, when they were both dragging him toward nirvana at warp speed.

"It'd be nice to fuck you. I'd love to fuck that beautiful, tight ass of yours. Have you ever been fucked?" Chuck didn't respond, still mesmerized by those eyes. They seemed to blaze more brightly in the dim interior of the car. "You'd enjoy it. I'd make sure of that. I could sit in the back seat and you could sit on my cock. You could hold on to the seat in front of you and fuck yourself on me as fast or slow as you wanted."

Chuck moaned.

"Would you like that? Fucking yourself on my cock?"

He had to close his eyes; the feelings were too much. There were words in his ear, pictures in his head, a hand on his cock and he was whimpering, shoving his hips up in desperation.

"I'm not going to do any of that today. You know why?" Casey didn't stop for an answer; it had to be obvious he wouldn't get one. "It's because I want to see you. I want to see your face when you let go. I want to feel you jerk in my hand when you shoot. I want to see you come all over yourself. I want to see everything."

It was that, Casey wanting to see him when Chuck felt so invisible almost all the time, that made Chuck's world turn over. He came, shuddering and groaning, strings of come hanging on the cotton creases of his shirt as Casey was kissing him, dirty wet kisses with that filthy, perfect mouth.

A couple weeks later Chuck was standing at the kitchen table, coated to his ears in brown and white powdery substances. Ellie choked down a laugh when she saw him.

"Smells great in here! Would you like a hand with . . . that?"

"Oh, no," he replied airily. "I have lots of help." The kitten, standing on the table, sneezed. "Besides, if I can fix a computer, I can do this. It's all about following the instructions." He deposited Mata Hari back onto the floor. She'd left prints in the flour dusting the table.

"What is, uh, this?" She quit trying to stifle her smile.

"I'm making cookies." He tried to sound snobby and cheflike, with a fake French accent, but given the situation, it didn't work so well. "Can't you tell?"

"Why?"

He'd been prepared for this one. "John's birthday is coming up." He had no idea when it was. He intended to find out.

"Oh, that's really nice." Ellie eyed the proceedings. "I think."

"I was wondering if you and Awesome might consider going out for dinner. I'll buy the wine." That ought to be enough temptation. "This might take a little longer than I thought."

"Finally, a good excuse! I'm heading to the shower. Tell Devon when he gets in."

Making cookies was harder than it looked; these things, especially. They burned on the bottom even when he didn't leave them in too long. Chuck suspected the molasses. Along with ginger and cloves, it was probably a new axis of evil. He'd narrowed it down to three recipes, and he was getting better. Still, he had a feeling that none of his were going to be the right kind. That was why he'd called around and bought a couple dozen from different places.

Molasses cookies were not everywhere. There was obviously good reason for this.

He put in the last sheet of cookies and started cleaning up. After that one was finished, he threw the bakery cookies into the still-warm oven for a minute or two. Ordinarily he wouldn't mess with something as important as cookies, but this was different.

When Casey rang the bell, he was a little nervous. "Come on in, I know I invited you for dinner, but there isn't actually any dinner yet, we'll have to call out --"

but Casey wasn't listening. He was inhaling. He was consuming the moist, spice-laden air. "This is. What did you –"

Chuck led him into the kitchen, where there was coffee, milk, and four platters of cookies. "Cookie tasting."

"You did this? For me?"

Chuck made a show of rolling his eyes. "I'll have you know I'm a great cook."

He waved Casey into a chair and dramatically snapped open a cloth napkin, tucking it into Casey's collar, for which he got a smirk. It wasn't surprising that Casey took this seriously. What truly did surprise him was the awe on Casey's face when he bit into one and said in a hushed voice, "Oh, my God, this is it. These are them. These could be my Grandma Ruth's cookies."

Casey's eyes were the tiniest bit shiny, and he looked down as he chewed. "I adored her. She mostly raised me. My mom was a little . . . unreliable." Even back in Casey's day, that could've covered anything from scatter-brained to drug-addicted and on through things Chuck would rather not think about. "That woman taught me to dunk the hard ones in coffee, and everything else that was important in life. She died right after I graduated from college. She was the one who made sure I got through college." He looked up. "You made me my grandmother's cookies."

Chuck's joke about repayment with sexual favors dissolved. Instead, he reached out and covered Casey's not-busy-eating hand with one of his own. "I'm glad you like them."

"They're wonderful." Casey was softer around the edges than Chuck had ever seen him. His huge hand turned palm-up under Chuck's and clasped it firmly. "Thank you. I love them."

What could he do but lean over and get a cookie-flavored kiss?

Someday he'd probably come clean and tell the man they came from Von's. But not tonight.


End file.
